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20 January 2014

TaxiPixi aims to make taxis more popular in India and beyond

A new free taxi booking app is making waves in India. Available through
an Android or iOS app or online, TaxiPixi is less than a year old and offers reliable point-to-point and
hourly packages for booking cabs, motorcycles or autos (auto-rickshaws).

TaxiPixi's home page online

“We believe that the primary hurdle towards increasing taxi
usage is the lack of reliable availability and the perceived high cost of taxis
when compared to driving your own car,” said Co-founder and CEO Kajal
Dubey.

According to Dubey, taxi usage can be increased in India
when customers are assured of four things:

1. Availability: If there is always a cab available when a
customer makes a booking

2. Timeliness: Customers should get the cab in 10 to 15
minutes

3. Reliability: A driver who accepts the booking always shows
up, and shows up on time

4. Cost: The cost of using a taxi should not be 25% to 30%
higher than driving your own car

“We hope to achieve these goals by making taxi booking
extremely easy, increasing transparency of cab availability and providing more
choices to customers as well as drivers. We believe that these will help in
improving the efficiency of the taxi market in India, thereby reducing the cost
of taxis for customers and increasing the profitability for cab drivers,” she
said.

TaxiPixi is structured with safety in mind, Dubey added. “We
add a driver to the TaxiPixi platform only after a thorough manual verification
of all documents, permits and licences of the cab and driver. As an additional
safety measure, we are working on technology that would enable customers to share
details of their journey with their family and friends,” Dubey said.

While CabGuru also offers taxi
booking in India, TaxiPixi seems to have hit the sweet spot for many. Since it
was launched in May 2013, TaxiPixi has crossed 25,000 downloads on the Android platform,
with 20,000+ downloads for Delhi alone. TaxiPixi launched in Hyderabad in
October 2013 and has since added more than 200 drivers and more than 5,000
Android downloads from that city. There was also pent-up demand for TaxiPixi on
iOS. The iOS app launched on Christmas eve 2013, and saw more than 1,000
downloads in less than 48 hours.

“We plan to extend our services to other metro cities
including Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune and Chennai,” Dubey shared. “TaxiPixi
has also received interest from entrepreneurs in other countries – including
the US, UK, Peru, Turkey, and Malaysia, to bring the free taxi booking app to
these markets.”